April 30, 2010

It’s very strange that I had no problem buying liquor or illegal drugs when I was underage but I was too embarrased to buy condoms in a drug store.

In the group of friends I hung out with, fear of pregnancy was very high. I think we would have had less of a problem calling our parents to bail us out of jail on a minor drug offense than to come home and tell them you had gotten someone pregnant or were pregnant (my female friends, not me).

My solution to this dilemma was to buy condoms from a vending machine in the bathroom of a gas station that was at the end of the airport runway.

I finally got over this fear of buying condoms publically when I was about 18 and moved in with my now wife and she had no problem sending me to the store to buy her “feminine hygiene” products. Once I tackled that fear, condoms were no problem.

The fear of pregnancy followed my wife and I through our 20’s and 30’s. We were never ready to have kids, didn’t have enough money to have kids, we should have done that last year, all the usual reasons. We then realized one day we were too old to have kids. Probably not biologically but definitely psychologically. We were selfish and self-centered.

Children can’t be let out in the yard to play until you get up at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday because you were out at a club until last call the night before. Dogs can. Cats don’t even need to be let out, you can ignore them.

We never talked about our lack of desire to have children with family very much which led to the following encounter between my wife and her father when we were in our late 30’s –

My father in law had some sort of surgery and my wife had gone to Florida to be his “nurse” during this time. As he woke up from the anesthesia, she was standing there and he asked her “Have you had Charlie tested?” her response was “for what?”. He then said “well you’ve never had kids”. Her final response –

January 16, 2010

80's Style Wicker Cabinet - Caution Flammable

I always loved those song lyrics. They are from “Inside Out” by Eve 6 (video below).

The song is no great masterpiece but the lyric wicker cabinet always reminds me of the first apartments my wife and I had together in the early 80’s. Wicker was both the stylish and affordable choice in home decor and World Bazaar was where you got it.

Hey, it’s not like we were freakin rich and could buy things from Pier One.

We had one neighbor whose apartment opened out on to the parking lot and they left their drapes open all the time so we could see in to their apartment when we were coming and going.

We nicknamed them “Wicker/Rattan”. At the time we pretended to each other that the nickname was out of derision for the lavish use of wicker in their Home Decor. Looking back now I realize we were just downright jealous.

I partied with them a few times and did learn their real names. The last time I saw either of them was about a year after we moved out of that complex and when I ran in to him he had lost like 30 pounds, looked like a definite coke freak and ready for rehab.

I guess a beautiful apartment with Wicker Home Decor just wasn’t enough.